


Bottom of the Line

by Trinary



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Dystopia, Gay Robots, M/M, Sexual Dysfunction, Size Difference, Sort Of, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Transformers Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, starscream was made on the cheap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 16:44:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trinary/pseuds/Trinary
Summary: Skyfire’s been pining over his lab partner for too long. He could swear Starscream has a thing for him, too, but when they finally get together, it doesn’t go like he expects.Skyfire’s always been told the cold constructed were missing something. He just didn’t think it wasthis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Me, sitting in a plush armchair by a roaring fire, swirling hideous dystopias as one would fancy wine: _but how can I make it worse???_
> 
> Takes place in a big ol’ handwave mashup G1/IDW canon. Don’t worry about it.

Skyfire’s hand brushes Starscream’s as Skyfire hands over the sample box. The contact sends a hot jolt through his systems. Starscream doesn’t notice, just bends over his rack of test tubes to pipette a measured dose of crystallizing agent into each. The samples are unprocessed energon. They’re supposed to be working on improved purification methods for their final project, but it’s slow going. Starscream’s brilliant. He’s also second only to Wheeljack in experiments that inexplicably explode.

“Pass me the hydrofluoric acid,” Starscream asks, for the third time.

Skyfire fumbles it over. Their fingers brush again.

Starscream snatches the vial. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Your head’s wandering around in space, and here I am, doing delicate experiments—”

Skyfire cycles his vents and inclines his head pointedly at the half of the lab that’s his.

Starscream waves his free hand. “All right, _we’re_ doing delicate experiments. That’s even worse. You’re not paying attention.” He frowns. “Did I add one drop or two?”

“Two.”

“Right. Good, I don’t want it _too_ stable.” Starscream gives the tube a shake. The fluid it contains is yellowish. When he doses it with impure energon, it bubbles and turns a virulent purple-black. Starscream scrunches his face up and scowls. “Hm. Scratch hydrofluoric acid off the list. Useless.”

Skyfire badly wants to kiss him.

He’s not sure when he first noticed his loud little lab partner that way. Well—that’s a half a lie. The circumstances are blurry. Skyfire had been on his way back from a pub crawl with the handful of academy students who don’t mind associating with a flightframe. He’d met Starscream going in the other direction. That moment’s preserved, a single snapshot bright against the engex blur: Starscream haloed under a streetlight, mid-stride, his wings two sharp white angles. He’d looked like an advertisement for the Vosian flight corps. Skyfire’d almost smacked into a building ogling him.

Not that Starscream’s small. He isn’t. It’s only that Skyfire’s huge, all out of proportion with the academy and everyone in it. Standing, the top of Starscream’s helm barely grazes his hip. In some ways, the academy deans hate Skyfire’s presence more than Starscream’s. Starscream’s only a cold-constructed seeker. Skyfire is a rare breed of forged transport. He pushes the upper bound of what’s possible before sheer size makes mechs… Strange. Skyfire interned in a titan, briefly. It was the oddest experience of his life.

The tube in Starscream’s hand explodes. Starscream shrieks. Goop splatters his cockpit.

Skyfire shoots to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m not! My paint’s ruined! Look at this. Just look at it!” Starscream drags his fingers through the mess. “Ugh, why is it sticky?”

Skyfire approaches with a solvent-soaked pad. “Here, let me—”

“You’re getting it all over the place!”

“It’s already all over the place.” The caustic goop takes some of Starscream’s surface nanites with it. Starscream reacts like he’s dying. Skyfire keeps him from wriggling. “The faster it comes off, the less damage there will be. Hold still.”

By the time he’s clean, Starscream’s settled down. He keeps up his low-level grumbling. The damage isn’t bad. Bright red paint smears the solvent pad, but the bare grey splotches on his chest will repopulate in an orn or three. Most of the mess stayed on his cockpit, which has no nanites to destroy. With nothing more to wipe away, Skyfire takes his time. The slight vibration of Starscream’s engines transmits through his cockpit glass. He’s warm. Skyfire cleans a stray droplet of solvent with his thumb before it leaves a mark.

Starscream… Looks at him.

Skyfire’s suddenly conscious of their position. They’re so close together—they always are, the lab’s cramped, but this is _different_ —Skyfire’s hand above Starscream’s spark, Starscream trapped against the lab bench by Skyfire’s bulk. Skyfire could run that hand up, cup Starscream’s chin, and lean in. His touch could drift lower. Starscream looks as if he half wants him to, lips parted, optics bright. His complaints have gone silent.

Skyfire leans down.

Starscream ducks under Skyfire’s arm and away. “If you’re _quite_ finished, I have ten more of these to get through in the next two joors. I don’t know how they expect us to produce good work on such short schedules. It’s like they want us to fail.”

The moment’s gone. Skyfire backs off.

He could’ve read the situation wrong, he admits. It’s his first assumption, even later that orn while he nurses cheap engex at the dive bar closest to the academy. The bar’s nicknamed _Class_ by the students, just for the stupid joke. Skyfire keeps going back to that moment when their optics met. Electricity ran through his frame. He swears he saw the same on Starscream. Then a wall came down between them, and Skyfire wasn’t brave enough to push.

Wheeljack sprawls into the chair opposite. Two of his friends follow. Skyfire doesn’t really know either of them. One’s in materials science, the other in medical training. Wheeljack carries a cube so potent it fumes. “The bar’s no place to mope, Skyfire. You still twisted up about that partner of yours?”

Skyfire’s had more to drink than he should. What comes out his mouth is a mournful sort of plea. “He’s so _pretty_.”

Wheeljack’s friend chokes on his drink.

Wheeljack snorts. “We _get it_ , Sky. That’s why you’ve been making a fool of yourself over him for… How long was it, now?”

Skyfire doesn’t want to contemplate. “Sometimes I think he’s interested. Then it just… Goes nowhere.”

Wheeljack’s friend makes a sympathetic noise. “It’s not your fault. That’s how Screamer is: frigid. His first decivorn on campus, everything with a spark and a working set of optics tried to get under his plating. I don’t think anybody did. You know how flightframes are—no offense. But especially the seekers they make in Vos. They trine up with their own kind and you can’t get them into the berth for anything.”

Wheeljack’s other friend sips engex and looks thoughtful. “You have wings, even if you’re a shuttle. That could tip the scales. If you seduce him, tell us if he lives up to his name.”

Wheeljack waves his cube. “Speaking of tipping the scales, how about the game last orn?”

They switch over to discussing sports. Skyfire’s relieved, even if he finds it incomparably boring.

He’s not a fan of Wheeljack’s friends. Skyfire never says anything about it. He can’t afford to alienate the few willing to put up with him, if he doesn’t want to hang out by himself for the rest of his academic career. It’s hard enough to deal with the professors who don’t think he belongs here. Even other flightframes, who don’t understand why he’s doing this. _They’re_ happy hauling cargo, or flying the defense grid, and act as if it’s an attack on them that he isn’t. Skyfire doesn’t know how to explain to them the thrill of the unknown, of numbers and chemical formulas; everyone looks at him like he’s processor-damaged and says, _but it’s not what you’re for_.

At least Starscream understands, even if he’s prickly as a nest of Polyhexian scraplets.

 

Failed experiment upon failed experiment, and they’re both getting touchy. Skyfire’s ideas fail in less spectacular ways than Starscream’s, but it doesn’t make them any less failures. They snap at each other over stupid things, like who used the last of the mercury sulfide, or who left half an energon cube sitting around and attracted glitchmice. Every argument adds to Skyfire’s frustration. He’s not the angry type, but he’s nearing the end of his chain. If the academy would give them adequate support, or funding, or _anything_ —

Starscream’s latest disaster explodes on the lab bench. He yelps. This time the mess spatters nothing but the wall.

“I told you that wouldn’t work,” Skyfire says.

“I did the math!”

“You did the math for processing it in a high-pressure crucible, which we _do not have.”_

“Because the faculty won’t let me use it! It had a twenty-six percent chance of working at normal pressurization.”

Skyfire waves his hand at the gently steaming mess. “And what were the percentages in the crucible? Fifty-five? Face it, they didn’t want to risk you ruining it.”

“Just because I understand the need to take risks for the sake of progress—”

“ _Taking risks_ doesn’t mean destroying lab equipment!”

“Oh, and we should all be like _you_ , safe and steady Skyfire, who always triple checks and gets his requests denied _anyway_.” Starscream jabs him in the cockpit. “Get it through your thick helm: the only way to get anything done around here has nothing to do with asking permission.”

The worst thing is, Starscream’s attractive when he’s angry, and he’s angry a lot of the time. In the middle of a screaming row his optics gleam, his wings flare wide, and his lip pulls into a sneer worthy of the primes of old. One disdainful flash of white teeth and Skyfire’s running hot. He blames that for the fact that he loses most of their arguments. This time, he’s too annoyed to back down. They’ve been crammed into this lab together for what seems like forever, and something’s at its breaking point.

Skyfire points, again, at the ruined experiment. “How many times can you _not ask permission_ before they kick you out? You know they’re looking for an excuse.”

“I’m too good for them to dare. When I shove my results in their faces, they’ll eat the cost of anything I break and _like_ it. They always do.”

“That’s not the point! You can’t keep doing this. It reflects badly on—”

“On all flightframes? Why, Skyfire, I didn’t know I was responsible for you.” Starscream crowds his space. Skyfire’s dizzily aware of the heat of him, of the look in his optics—not just anger, not anymore. Sparking tension builds between them, near palpable. “Stop playing the meek little—oops, _big_ —flightframe. It doesn’t matter what you do. They’ll never respect you. A pair of wings and an empty helm is all they’ll ever see, unless you _make_ them see you.”

“That’s all you want? To be seen?”

“I suppose you want to hide away.”

“I don’t want to hide, I just…”

Skyfire kind of _does_ , for the most part. He wants to be left to his experiments, not play politics; not be the accidental vanguard of anti-functionist sentiment. In some ways he thinks Starscream’s the same, but Starscream wears it like a badge. They don’t want him here, but _slag them all_ , no one can make him leave.

Starscream sneers his most arch sneer. “That’s why you get pushed around. If you’d stand up straight and stare them down without trying to be _small_ —”

Sentiment overcomes him. Skyfire’s hand rises. He touches Starscream’s face. “I see you, Starscream.”

Starscream jerks back. His wingtips twitch, like he’s not sure what to make of it. Any minute now, the wall will come between them.

This time, Skyfire won’t let it.

Then they’re kissing. Skyfire crashes down on Starscream. He pins him to a clean part of the workbench. Starscream’s mouth is hot. His fans buzz. Starscream grips Skyfire’s chassis and hauls himself into the kiss, sloppy, hungry, and desperate; Starscream must’ve been craving this almost as long as Skyfire. If only they’d both given in sooner, they could’ve been doing this all along.

Skyfire gets a handful of Starscream’s wing. Starscream arches against him. No one can touch a flightframe like another flightframe. Starscream does the same, fingers curled into the gaps at Skyfire’s shoulder. He teases bare wires. Skyfire’s groan is a low rumble against Starscream’s neck. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”

If Starscream answers, it’s lost in a wash of static. Skyfire bites his neck cables. Starscream vibrates with suppressed charge. It crackles on his plating and dances on his wings. Apparently, it’s been a while since Starscream last overloaded. Skyfire’s barely done anything yet, and Starscream’s fans whir like they’re ready to fail. It’s an ego boost, to be honest.

Actual penetration probably won’t happen, thanks to their size difference. At least not without patient work. Still, the image of Starscream near split on Skyfire’s spike dances in his head. He imagines Starscream lowering himself, inch by inch, as lubricant pearls from his straining valve. His lip, bitten in concentration. All the _sounds_ he’d make, the little gasps and moans; Skyfire’s hands on his hips, not forcing him down but supporting him, drawing it out, fighting Starscream’s impatience to make him go _slow_ until he’s fully seated and Starscream’s plating bulges with Skyfire’s thickness.

Skyfire keeps one hand on Starscream’s wing. The other trails across Starscream’s ventral plating, onto a white thigh. Starscream gets to his knees on the lab bench to reach Skyfire properly; Starscream kisses him again. He hooks an arm over Skyfire’s shoulder to tease his ailerons. Skyfire’s knees almost buckle. He catches himself, gasping. No one’s done that in ages. He kisses Starscream’s cockpit in thanks.

Starscream fragging him would be just as good. The positioning’s always awkward, but on hands and knees his array would be waist-height to Starscream. All Starscream would have to do is grab Skyfire by the hips and thrust inside. If he’s lucky, Starscream will use his wings as handholds. That can be difficult to talk people into—especially other flightframes—but Skyfire’s wings are thick and sturdy, built for atmospheric reentry. They can stand up to a lot of punishment.

Skyfire mouths his way down Starscream’s front. When he reaches Starscream’s hip joint, Starscream slips off the lab bench.

Starscream grins, all teeth, helm level with Skyfire’s straining interface panel. “So _that’s_ what you wanted. I’m just the right height.”

Skyfire’s array throbs with arousal at the insinuation. His panel snaps open. He couldn’t stop it if he’d tried. The lab air is cold on his overheated valve, lubricant slick on his plating; his spike pressurizes in Starscream’s face. Starscream looks at it in mounting incredulity. He’s so close Skyfire feels the hot brush of Starscream’s fan exhaust on his spike tip.

“On anyone else, I’d say you were overcompensating. But I suppose you’re just—proportional.”

“ _Please,”_ Skyfire groans. He isn’t sure what he’s begging for. Something. _Anything_.

The moment Starscream’s mouth touches the underside of Skyfire’s spike is a benediction. Skyfire braces himself on the lab bench. He spreads his legs wider. Starscream’s in no hurry. He’s teasing, almost exploratory. Skyfire’s valve swallows two fingers easily. The sight of Starscream’s dark lips and tongue dragging wetly up the side of his spike almost undoes him.

Then, on the downstroke, Starscream gets all the way to Skyfire’s node and _sucks_.

Skyfire overloads hard. His optics flare bright as his valve clenches on Starscream’s fingers, lubricant gushing over his hand and spattering his plating. Skyfire’s knees wobble. He sinks, slowly. Starscream’s fingers slip from him as he does. Skyfire rests his face on Starscream’s chest, careless of the mess there. His processor’s still spinning. “That was amazing.”

“You _do_ seem to enjoy getting fluids all over me.”

Starscream stands. He wets a solvent pad, wipes the lubricant and transfluid from his plating and comes back to Skyfire. He hands the pad over. Skyfire takes it. In fairness, the stuff’s kind of disgusting when it cools. Starscream’s fastidious—if he wants to keep tidy, Skyfire doesn’t mind. It’s the work of two kliks to clean himself up.

“Come here, Starscream. Let me kiss you again. I want to… Starscream?”

But Starscream’s gone.

Starscream’s not in the lab. He’s not in the hall. He’s not anywhere. Post-overload bliss congeals into abject humiliation. Hurt wars with confusion. Has he done something wrong?

Skyfire waits. Starscream doesn’t come back.


	2. Chapter 2

After a few orns, Skyfire’s forced to admit Starscream’s avoiding him. They don’t cross paths in the dorms, lectures, or at the bar—not that Starscream was ever much for crowded spaces. The only place they meet is their shared lab. There, Starscream’s downright frosty. Every question’s answered clipped and terse. If Skyfire says anything unrelated to the experiment of the day, he’s ignored. When he tries to apologize, Starscream ignores him harder.

Skyfire’s still not sure what happened. Unless Starscream had a vastly different read on things, they were both enjoying themselves until… He doesn’t know what point _until_ was, but it must’ve been there. Everything was wonderful until it wasn’t. Was it something he said? Something he did? Maybe Starscream’s angry Skyfire overloaded and he hadn’t—but Starscream didn’t give him the chance to reciprocate.

Maybe Starscream’s embarrassed by the whole situation and getting striped with Skyfire’s mess had been his cue to flee.

Starscream doesn’t seem like a _casual hookup_ kind of person. For all Skyfire knows, this is post-interface awkwardness channeled—in true Starscreamian fashion—into the most counterproductive avenues possible. Does he think Skyfire’s one in the long line of people coldly plotting to climb under his plating? It would explain a few things.

The thought settles solid and icy in Skyfire’s fuel tank. He needs to make Starscream understand he wasn’t looking for a quick frag. He wants more than that. Skyfire didn’t realize how _much_ more until the moment Starscream had kissed him back. Primus himself could’ve manifested from the molten depths of Cybertron to crack him over the head with it, and he wouldn’t be any more infatuated with Starscream than he is now. If he’s going to to fix this, he has to do it right. Starscream needs to be _romanced_.

Not that, perhaps, Starscream’s the type for romance. Skyfire steadfastly ignores the possibility.

He starts subtly. Skyfire treats Starscream as he always has. When it becomes obvious Skyfire won’t bring up whatever went wrong between them, Starscream relaxes. Soon, Starscream’s back to snippy comments and sarcastic diatribes on the quality of their feedstock, lab equipment, and professors. On the orn Skyfire supplies Starscream with just enough commentary to spur Starscream’s joor-long rant on the morons who built the academy without taking the problem of prospective students’ wingspans into account, he knows they’re back to normal. It helps when Skyfire turns a corner too fast, smacks a new student in the face, and demonstrates Starscream’s point by accident.

“Watch it, you dumb shuttle,” the mech spits, from the floor.

Starscream hisses and onlines every bit of offensive weaponry in his frame.

The mech’s optics go huge. He scuttles off. Skyfire watches him leave. “Was that necessary?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll get cited, one of these days.”

Starscream’s guns fold back into him. Soon he’s small, sleek, and unassuming, except for a grin that’d intimidate Unicron. “Oh, please. I’m but a poor, stupid seeker who can’t control his instincts. They’re just happy I’m not brawling.”

Skyfire settles a hand on Starscream’s shoulder. Starscream doesn’t pull away. There are a lot of things he wants to say— _Starscream, do you have to antagonize them,_ and _do you_ have _to escalate every challenge_ —but he knows the answers are _yes_ and _yes._ He knows why Starscream’s the way he is. 

Sometimes Skyfire even envies it.

On impulse, Skyfire asks, “do you want to come over, later?”

“Over?”

“To my dorm. Didn’t you mention Blurr’s new movie a while ago? I was going to watch it with Wheeljack.”

Starscream squints. “Ugh, of _course_ Wheeljack likes Blurr. I mentioned it because I was making the point that Blurr’s movies are nothing but explosions strung together with inane dialog. Will Wheeljack’s friends be there?”

“No.”

“Good. I can’t stand them.”

Skyfire sweetens the deal. “I have snacks.”

Starscream, like any student, is easily swayed by free fuel. He agrees to show up at Skyfire’s dorm in a few joors’ time. Skyfire bids him a cordial goodbye, stays calm all the way home, gets into his dorm, and panics.

He comms Wheeljack.

“This isn’t funny,” Skyfire tells Wheeljack, after Wheeljack’s done laughing at him. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t think Blurr’s new movie comes out until the next decaorn. Starscream will come over and know I made it up, and I don’t know _why_ I made it up when I could’ve just invited him for _any other reason_. My snacks aren’t even good! All I have is a half-empty bag of stale oil crisps. This is a disaster!”

“Something’s a disaster, all right.”

Skyfire glares at Wheeljack from between his fingers.

Wheeljack pats him, consolingly. “Calm down. It’ll be fine. He doesn’t even like Blurr, right? Tell him I couldn’t make it and throw on some soppy historical. He’ll eat it up.”

“He’ll know I was lying if you aren’t there!”

“Sky, I don’t think Starscream will exactly _mind_ , you get me? He won’t ask questions. I’ll even toss in a case of crystal candy to the cause of finally getting you laid.”

Skyfire wonders if it’s possible to die of embarrassment. “Don’t say it like—wait. Why do you have spare candy?”

“Whipped it up in the lab a while back, just to see if I could. Don’t look at me like that, it won’t explode. Well, this batch won’t.”

When Wheeljack brings him the box, Skyfire handles it gingerly. He’s not sure how much he trusts it. A bed of spiky geodes lie in glittering ranks, in imitation of energon in its natural state. Crunchy outsides encase thick, thorium-laced jelly. It’s the kind of thing that costs a fortune in an Iacon shopfront. Likely less, when it comes from Wheeljack’s dubious provenance.

Skyfire tries one. It’s amazing. “If the academy ever kicks you out for blowing it up, you could go into business.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

 

To Skyfire’s chagrin, Wheeljack’s right. Starscream doesn’t complain about Wheeljack’s absence, nor swapping _Moon Heist 3: This Time it’s Personal_ with _In the Shadow of the Ark_ , a period romance between a shipwright and a minor noble set during the construction of the Ark-1. They set up in Skyfire’s common room. It’s private, by virtue of the fact they had to knock the dividers out of all three rooms in his pod to give him enough room to recharge. He still bangs his knees into the walls half the time.

Starscream’s delighted with the candy. Skyfire declines to mention where it’s from.

They start the movie sitting a bit apart; when the third act rolls around, and Phasesweep’s brooding in the acid rain—while Cascade watches, lovelorn, sure it will never work out between them—Starscream’s cuddled up to Skyfire’s side. His optics are glued to the screen. He might be sniffling a little.

In the klik Skyfire notices Starscream leaning on him, he forgets they’re watching a movie at all. Starscream’s face is soft and open in the flickering light. It’s as if, unwatched, all his hardness falls away. Skyfire wishes Starscream would drop that veneer on purpose, for him; that he didn’t have to be the strongest, fastest, _smartest_ at every moment of his life.

Skyfire wishes Starscream knew it was safe to stop, sometimes, and rest.

Starscream catches him looking. Aloof distance falls like a shutter. He scoots away.

Skyfire catches him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait.”

Starscream tenses. “Why?”

“Because I… I need to know what this is. What you want from me. We kissed in the lab, and then you just—and you wouldn’t talk to me after! I don’t understand. You keep getting close and pulling back.”

“Maybe you’re not as attractive as you think you are.”

“Which was why you came over, and why you were cuddling me.” Skyfire squeezes Starscream’s shoulder. It confirms his suspicions. “Which is why you’re running hot. _Starscream_ , if you don’t want me, that’s fine. I’ll never bring it up again. But I can’t keep playing this game. If I’m just some kind of… Diversion, to you…”

Starscream looks stricken.

He climbs into Skyfire’s lap to kiss him. The movie plays on, forgotten. When the kiss breaks Starscream’s fans are on low, plating warm to the touch. Skyfire steadies him, a hand on his hip, and notices again how much smaller Starscream is.

Maybe that’s what scared him off. It’s happened before, though usually not so late into the proceedings.

Starscream doesn’t quite look at him. “You’re not a diversion.”

“Then you want this?” Skyfire runs cautious fingers up the swell of Starscream’s cockpit. “Want me?”

“ _Yes_ , you complete and total— _argh_.” Starscream buries his face in his hands. He speaks through them. “First, whenever an experiment went right, you’d get this _look,_ and I’d want to kiss your big stupid face. Then you _flirted_ with me and I didn’t, I _couldn’t…_ ”

“You’re allowed to exist outside your work, Starscream.”

“I know.” Starscream goes weird and tense under Skyfire’s touch. Skyfire’s hand stills. Starscream still doesn’t look at him. “It won’t be… Good. For you. I don’t have… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Skyfire knows how much that admission costs him. Starscream, who’s never been less than the best at anything he’s done. Starscream, who barely recharges, eats only when reminded, and yet is top of all his classes and goes around polished to perfection at every moment of every orn. The only time Skyfire’s seen him with so much as a scratch is in the direct aftermath of a lab accident.

Skyfire takes Starscream’s wrists in hand. He lifts them away from Starscream’s mouth enough to kiss him again. Starscream doesn’t fight it. 

Skyfire rests their helms together. “Hey. We can take it as slow as you want. I don’t want some imaginary berth-fantasy seeker. I want you, whatever that means.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Skyfire tweaks his wingtip. Starscream gasps and arches against him.

“I’m sure,” Skyfire says, against the side of Starscream’s neck.

The candy box is within arm’s reach. Skyfire plucks one and holds it to Starscream’s lips. Starscream’s tongue wraps around it, and across Skyfire’s fingertips for good measure. Skyfire’s ventilation system stutters.

When Starscream kisses him, he tastes of sweet-spicy thorium jelly. For a while, all they do is kiss, even as Skyfire’s array rouses and Starscream heats in his arms. Soon Starscream’s grinding into every touch, wings fluttering. His vents come in gasps.

Skyfire runs his hands down Starscream’s front. His fingers dip to tease Starscream’s panel seams.

Only Skyfire can’t find them.

The moment Starscream realizes what Skyfire’s doing, he launches out of Skyfire’s lap and halfway across the room. His fans roar. Electricity crackles on his frame. Starscream looks desperately aroused and furiously embarrassed. His fists clench and unclench. Skyfire’s HUD gives him a confused warning about a malfunctioning defense emplacement activating its targeting systems.

“Starscream,” Skyfire says, “you could’ve told me to stop. I’d have stopped. If I did something wrong—”

“You didn’t.” Starscream’s mouth twists. He looks away. “It’s me. I’m just. Like this.”

“Like what?”

Starscream growls. “Do I have to spell it out? I’m cold constructed. _Bottom quality_ cold constructed. They cut corners. What does a flying gun need with an array? I’m lucky to have a _mouth_.”

_Oh_.

Skyfire’s speechless. His optics are drawn to the place Starscream’s panel should be and isn’t. Did they not install the components? Do the hookups exist? Worse, did they pack something else there instead, to save on frame weight? Skyfire gestures helplessly at Starscream’s glossy paint, aerodynamic frame, and pretty face. Nothing about him screams _cheap_. “But…”

“Good thing for me Vos likes its chattel to look good in the military parades.”

Skyfire reaches for him.

Starscream jolts further away. His fists clench so hard metal creaks. He won’t look at Skyfire. “Don’t. I don’t want your pity. You wanted to know, and now you know. Let’s skip the part where you coo over my tragic circumstances and congratulate yourself on what a good person you are for still wanting to frag me.”

Skyfire knows Starscream’s just lashing out. He flinches anyway. “That isn’t—”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I said I wanted _you_ , Starscream! I don’t care if you don’t have an array. There are other ways.”

“You think I don’t know? You’re twice my size, so tactile’s out. I’m not letting you or anyone else in my head, and sure as slag not my _spark_. Face it. This was always doomed and _stupid_ and I should just go home.”

When Skyfire reaches out—slowly, this time, so as not to spook him—Starscream doesn’t pull away. Skyfire rubs a comforting circle on his back. Nothing seductive in it, not for now; just a reassurance Starscream badly needs. Some tension bleeds from Starscream’s frame. He draws Starscream in and holds him, pets his helm and the backs of his wings until he calms. He still crackles with charge, but it’s less harsh.

Skyfire reluctantly agrees with Starscream’s assessment. Skyfire’s fingers are too big for any but the widest gaps in Starscream’s armor. Without a certain depth of trust, any kind of full merge is a bad, bad idea. Getting revved on surface touches is easy but overloading is hard. Skyfire could keep doing what he was doing, but it might be an exercise in frustration—there’s a reason arrays came into fashion. All those sensor nodes hooked into the pleasure centers, so interfacing didn’t have to mean trusting someone with your complete self—it could just be for fun.

Skyfire gets an idea.

He leans in and mouths at the juncture of Starscream’s throat. Starscream makes a hitching noise. He tips his head back. He’s unprepared for Skyfire to stick his tongue into his collar fairing and lick the wires there.

Starscream jolts. His fans kick into high gear. “W-what are you… That feeds my left gun battery. Stop that, you’ll burn yourself!”

“You used your mouth on me. It’s only fair.”

“You get there’s a reason people don’t use mouths for _this_ , don’t y— _ah!”_

Skyfire’s tongue is much more flexible than his fingers. Oral lubricants bridge components. Sparks dance. He toys with wires he can’t see as Starscream melts against him, fans speeding. He makes the sweetest noises. Has anyone done this for him before? Not the tongue part— _probably_ not that—but just bothered to hang around longer than it took for the lowest-effort encounter, and touched him? He’s beautifully responsive. Starscream clings to Skyfire’s front, head tipped back, throat bared. His engine purrs.

Starscream moans. His fingers dip into his own seams, in time with Skyfire’s mouth. Skyfire runs a free hand along Starscream’s wing. Electricity jolts through Starscream’s frame and snaps on Skyfire’s tongue.

Skyfire recoils. “Ow!”

“I _told_ you,” Starscream says. There’s no real heat in it. “Let me see.”

Skyfire tastes blown capacitors. He sticks out his tongue. Starscream doesn’t seem worried, and Skyfire can’t feel any real damage. Self-repair will take care of it soon enough, which is good. This isn’t an injury he wants to explain to a medic.

Starscream looks up at him, optics half-dimmed. “Let me kiss it better—oh, bleh. That tastes awful. I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

“Don’t short electrosensitive components, got it.”

“The lesson was _don’t interrupt a plasma cannon’s circuit with your mouth_ , but close enough.” Starscream squirms when Skyfire traces the seams that hide his guns. “Is this you asking to fondle my weapons systems?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“What, are you worried about blowing a hole in the wall?” Skyfire laughs. Starscream looks embarrassed. “Is that a risk? Have you actually—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Starscream says, and kisses him again.

Skyfire’s array aches for attention. He still hasn’t retracted his panel and isn’t sure where to go from here. Starscream may not have an array, but Skyfire’s not sure his own is welcome. His stinging tongue reminds him that continuing what he was doing is likely to be regrettable. It’s taken out of his hands when Starscream brushes Skyfire’s panel with his knuckles—it pops open with no input from Skyfire whatsoever.

Starscream cycles his optics at the outsized spike pressurizing between them. It’s nearly the size of Starscream’s forearm. “I thought I’d misremembered, but no.”

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

The sentence ends in an undignified whine as Starscream wraps an experimental hand around it. Skyfire curls over Starscream. He shivers with the effort of not bucking into that touch.

Starscream looks at him like he’s a fascinating new lab specimen. “Does it really feel that good?”

“It’s wired directly into my reward systems, so yes. Yes, it does.”

“That seems like it’d be distracting.”

“Only when I have a certain seeker _teasing_ me— _Starscream!”_

Starscream fails at looking innocent, with a finger sunk in Skyfire’s valve. Lubricant slicks his hand. He puts his finger in his mouth and looks thoughtful; Skyfire’s valve clenches on the lack of him. “I’m not sure what I expected that to taste like. It’s nothing, really, is it? It’s always something exotic, in romances.”

“Do I look like a fancy towers mech to you?”

“I think the towers wouldn’t have the first idea what to do with you, and it’s their loss.”

Then Starscream’s running his fingers over Skyfire’s node and valve lips, tracing the erratic patterns of his biolights, and Skyfire forgets how to speak. Charge runs molten through his lines. He wants desperately to make Starscream feel this in return, but he’s clumsy with arousal and doesn’t trust himself with Starscream’s delicate inner wiring. If he could only share what he’s feeling…

But maybe he can.

The idea’s impulsive, and a little crazy. So’s everything he’s done lately. He and _impulsive_ are becoming good friends. Skyfire pops the cover of his pectoral interface ports manually. He’s so charged they ache.

“Starscream?”

Starscream pushes himself back far enough to see what Skyfire’s done. He looks suspicious. “I told you I wasn’t letting you in my head.”

“You don’t have to.” Skyfire’s interface cable stays coiled in its housing. Skyfire taps his open port. That little touch bridges charged contacts. It sparkles through his system. Starscream stares a moment longer, baffled.

His gaze sharpens. “A one-way connection? You’d _do_ that?”

“Why not?”

“Because… _Because_ —”

Starscream waves his hands, uselessly. Skyfire knows what he’s protesting. A one-way linkup is _not the done thing_. Worse than rude, it’s a supremely selfish act; one visited almost exclusively on buymechs, or dramatized for interrogations. To do so is to shut your partner out. To take and never give. Starscream looks as if he isn’t sure whether to be touched or repulsed.

“No one does that,” Starscream says, finally.

“No one goes around licking other people’s wires, either.”

“For good reason! You burned yourself.”

“It’ll heal.”

“I won’t use you.”

“You aren’t. I’m offering. Aren’t we partners?” Skyfire taps his open port again. “You can borrow my systems. Let me make you feel good, Starscream.”

Starscream stares at that port. Conflicted temptation is plain on his face. After a long minute, he nods. Skyfire turns Starscream in his lap, so they’re back to belly. Skyfire’s spike juts absurdly thick between Starscream’s thighs. The brush of plating makes Skyfire shiver all over. One big hand teases the cable housing in Starscream’s chest from behind.

Skyfire lowers his mouth to Starscream’s neck. He kisses along the cables. “Open for me.”

Starscream whimpers and does; perhaps against his better judgement. Skyfire draws out Starscream’s cable head. He rolls it between two fingers. The position makes this awkward, back to front. At full extension, the cable’s just long enough to plug into himself. The sensation’s not unlike a full linkup. One moment Skyfire’s alone in his head. The next, he isn’t.

The difference is, Starscream’s a silent partner. There’s no sense of his thoughts or emotions as he wanders into Skyfire’s helm, no echoing of sensation back and forth. What Skyfire feels runs into Starscream and terminates there. Starscream is a black box. His presence rifles through Skyfire’s surface thoughts. He’s looking for… _Something_. A justification. A reason, maybe, because he still doesn’t understand what Skyfire’s getting out of this. Why Skyfire wants him, or if he does at all. Skyfire doesn’t need to see into Starscream’s head to know he’s insecure. It’s a part of him, the same as his wings.

“You’re beautiful, Starscream,” Skyfire says, against the back of Starscream’s neck, “and smart. Smarter than me, probably. Anyone who can’t see that is an idiot.”

There’s no lying, mind to mind. He lets Starscream feel the truth of it. Then Skyfire rocks his hips. His spike grazes the smooth plating between Starscream’s legs. He directs every bit of that sensation at Starscream.

Starscream nearly convulses in his arms. “ _P-Primus_ , that’s—”

“Yes?”

“Do that again!”

Skyfire does. Starscream clings there, fans straining. After a klik he realizes _he_ can move, too. His exploration of Skyfire’s frame takes on new urgency. His thighs squeeze Skyfire’s thrusting spike. When he finds Skyfire’s valve again, he curls two fingers in, then three. His fans roar so loud he’s vibrating. 

Skyfire thinks hard at Starscream: all the things he’d love to do to him, if he could. Starscream on hands and knees, wings spread for easy touching. Skyfire’s knees bent up to his head as Starscream drives deep into his body. His mouth on Starscream’s spike, his fingers in Starscream’s valve, teasing until Starscream begs. The gap in Starscream’s hip armor is just wide enough to admit Skyfire’s smallest finger. He draws it across the only wire he can reach.

Starscream arches in overload. His optics flare bright. It takes barely another touch to bring Skyfire after him. Starscream shrieks at the doubled sensation, half collapsed across Skyfire, hips quivering with phantom touches. Skyfire’s transfluid paints his thighs. His biolights flicker. He’s a mess. Skyfire kisses the juncture of his neck and wing and holds him still.

When the last of the overload fades, Skyfire disengages from Starscream. He only goes far enough to clean himself up. Even unaroused, Starscream gasps at the brush of cloth on Skyfire’s array. He’s still hooked in. Skyfire sends a pulse of appreciation for how good Starscream looks, wrecked, wanton, wearing Skyfire’s transfluid. Starscream bats at him, grabs the cloth and cleans his own plating in fussy swipes.

“You’ve ruined me,” Starscream groans, “now I know what I’m missing.”

“I’ll buy you the upgrades.”

“I know for a fact you live off low-grade and recharge on a slab barely bigger than you are.”

Skyfire gets an arm around him. He snuggles Starscream unrepentantly. The movie’s long since rolled to credits; they missed the big scene where Cascade kisses Phasesweep against the backdrop of the half-constructed ark, and Luna-1 rises in the background. Skyfire finds he doesn’t mind. It’s an opportunity to reschedule their movie date for another time.

Skyfire unhooks Starscream from his systems. He tucks the cable away. In its wake, the lack of someone riding piggyback on his thoughts is lonely. “When we’re rich, famous scientists, then. I’ll buy you the fanciest array on the market.”

Starscream snorts. “I’m not sure I want to know what bells and whistles the towers think are absolutely necessary this season.”

“Fully programmable biolights that flash rude words,” Skyfire says, to make him laugh, “prehensile spikes. Dye reservoirs, to make your lubricant glitter.”

“Dye reservoirs,” Starscream repeats, in an odd tone.

“Don’t tell me that’s something you want.”

“No, I—the energon purification project. If I were to use a coated slow-release formula to stabilize the reaction—hold on, I need to write this down.”

Starscream does, half lying across Skyfire, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration. Skyfire’s never been more in love with him.

“I’ll get you a whole new body,” Skyfire says, when he’s done, “all the latest mods and hookups. The fanciest paint money can buy. Then I’ll take you home and frag you ’til you can’t walk straight.”

“You promise?”

“I promise,” Skyfire says.

He pulls Starscream close against his front, already halfway into recharge. They could cross the room to his real berth, but this is just as good. Starscream’s right, he barely fits on it by himself. Skyfire fantasizes about the future—the new body he’ll buy Starscream, but also the home they’ll have together. A flightframes’ aerie, with a hot oil tub, high grade whenever they feel like it, and a berth big enough to fit them both. At the moment it seems like unimaginable luxury.

They’ll get there. If their project goes through, there’s a grant coming up for a xenology group looking to study energon formation on other planets. They could go together; the academy would certainly be happy to see the back of them.

It could be the start of something great.


End file.
